The Rail Band has been created as the house band of the
buffet of the train station in Bamako by Tidiani Koné, saxophonist and bandleader.
Twice a week, the band played in the station's restaurant and was successful. Soon, the
band was joined by singer Salif Keita (in 1970),
and later by Mory Kante and guitar player Djelimady
Tounkara. Mory Kanté played balafon and guitar but took over as a lead singer
from Salif who was forced to leave for being often late at concerts. Another lead singer of the
mid seventies was Makan Ganessy, who stopped his involvement in music entirely in 1976
as an act of religiousness and he even asked Radio Mali to destroy all his recordings.

Around 1975, the Rail Band went to Nigeria
on tour, and recorded a couple of albums. From the beginning, the Rail Band combined the rumba
and modern music styles with traditional Malian, mainly bambara, music to a new electric
mandingo music and therefore the band has been very influential.
In the 1980s, Tidiani Kone and Mory Kante had left, but the Rail Band continued, with a West
African tour. In 1990, the band, in the meantime renamed in Super Rail Band made a first
step towards an international career.

After a first international release in 1985, a record deal
with the French Indigo/Label Bleu in the 1990s turned out to be a good choice. Although the 1994
album wasn't quite as good, the « Mansa » album is a real gem. With singers like
Damory Kouyaté and Samba Sissoko, the Super Rail Band show continuity
rarely seen among the old big orchestras in Mali, although they lost their link to the railways
and thus their status as civil servants years ago.
Their latest album « Kongo Sigui »
was released in May 2003, and a European tour from May to July 2003 will bring them more fame.